


Still Life With Royalty

by Heather



Category: Doctor Who (2005), due South
Genre: Christmas, Cliffhangers, Crossover, Gen, Gift Fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-22
Updated: 2013-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-05 11:39:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1093471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Heather/pseuds/Heather
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the Consulate at Christmas, Ray Kowalski meets the Queen of England- who then risks his life in a wildly unusual way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Still Life With Royalty

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ThisAintBC](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThisAintBC/gifts).



Christmas in Chicago was usually one of Ray's favorite times of year. There was snow, which was nice, and present-swapping at the station, which could be kind of okay. It wasn't always a great time- Christmas right after he and Stella split, so that he was all alone in his crappy re-bachelor apartment had been pretty depressing- but overall, he couldn't complain much. 

This year, he had a lot of choices for people to spend it with. His parents were in town, the Vecchios' door was open. And, of course, there was Fraser. 

Probably most people would think he was nuts for picking Fraser, Ray knew that. He'd learned last year that American Christmas was a bit more foreign to Fraser than America in general. But buddies was buddies, and besides, Ray had never spent Christmas in a consulate before. 

He headed down the street in the snow, carrying a couple boxes with a scarf thrown on top of them so he could just bend his head down to wipe snowflakes off his glasses without having to use his hands, and generally feeling pretty at peace with the world. 

In hindsight, that was probably a mistake. 

When he got to the consulate, Fraser was standing outside, doing his stiff, stone-cold, unmoving Last Line Of Defense For Mini-Canada thing. Ray didn't know how he did it in the usual case (didn't the uniform get uncomfortable even when he _could_ move around and have a nice, private scratch when no one was looking?), but doing it with snow piling up around his ankles had to be the worst. Ray wondered if it'd cause an international incident or get Fraser court-martialed if he tried to slip him some coffee. 

"Hey, buddy," he greeted, crunching up to him through the slush. 

As usual, Fraser didn't move or even blink in acknowledgment. 

Ray chuckled a little. "Any chance you're gonna be closed for business soon? You know, for the holiday they call Christmas?" 

Fraser kept up his unblinking stare. The stare, it seemed, was totally element-proof. Ray was kind of impressed; you'd think he'd blink just a little by accident trying to get snow out of his eyelashes. Though, on closer inspection, there didn't seem to be any. Stetson must provide more protection than he'd thought. 

"Hey, am I gonna get shot if I go inside without you?" Ray asked. "Stand perfectly still if the answer is no." 

Of course Fraser didn't move. But, for some reason, it kinda tickled a little in his brain that Fraser wasn't moving. He didn't know why; that wasn't out of the norm for talking to Fraser when he was doing guard dog duty. He always stood there without blinking or moving. But... something in Ray's gut felt like this was a _different_ not blinking or moving. Like it wasn't Fraser's regular. 

Ray had struggled with the impulse to snap his fingers real close to Fraser's face while he was doing this before- he usually felt like a jackass for even considering it, seeing as Mounties were cops and cop was a crap enough job without civilian jerks with a wiseass sense of humor messing with you on duty. But this time, he couldn't help it; something felt off and it was giving him a distinct case of the creeps. He held his fingers an inch from Fraser's nose, under the hat, and snapped. 

Not even the tiniest little twitch. Ray wasn't a doctor, but he was pretty sure there should've been a reflex blink there. Either Fraser had mastered control of literally every nerve in his freaking body, or this was getting even creepier than Ray had thought. 

"I'll be right back," he said. "Don't go anywhere." ...right, because Fraser going anywhere was the problem. 

Ray headed inside the consulate and nearly yelled out loud as he ran head first into a Turnbullcicle. 

He wasn't frozen- not in the traditional sense of having been turned into ice- but he might as well have been. Turnbull was standing on a stepladder to hang a wreath over the door and seemed to have gotten stuck doing it. The wreath was still hung on his wrist while one hand held a nail against the wall and the other held a hammer, arm raised and elbow bent to strike the nail into the wall. His face had the absent, happy quality of Turnbull doing something he enjoyed, which just kinda made the whole thing worse. He looked like a video tape that had been paused. 

Ray felt his stomach settling somewhere in the general vicinity of his shoes. "Okay, that's queer." He ducked around Turnbull and ran up the stairs. "Ice queen!" 

There was no answer. Either there was an equal and opposite Thatchercicle somewhere around here, or she hadn't been in the consulate when the timeout was called. 

Ray could feel panic creeping around in the back of his head. If everybody in the consulate really was frozen, that wasn't exactly the kind of thing he could do anything about. Bad guys with big weapons and evil plans, sure. Everything going pear-shaped along the lines of an episode of The Twilight Zone? Not his thing. And it wasn't like he could call for back-up and say, _Hey, somebody freeze-framed the Canadian consulate. Send a team to find the play button ASAP._

He was seconds away from trying that anyway when he heard the little doggie groan down the hall. Ray tore off in that direction and found himself pulling up short outside the only room in the consulate that he had both never been to and still knew what it was- and that Turnbull would kill him if he ever found out he'd been in it. He took a breath, drew his gun, and gave the door a shove. 

The room itself didn't exactly live up to the name. Sure, it was pretty enough, with a whole mint and cream and other colors named after desserts theme going. The bed was huge and so were the windows, which he guessed implied a nice view. But from the title The Queen's Bedroom- always pronounced by Turnbull in such a way that you could actually hear those capital letters- Ray had been kind of expecting more. 

And a tall, pretty black woman in a red cloak scratching Dief behind the ears was not the "more" he had in mind. 

"Who the hell are you?" Ray asked, raising the gun. "How'd you get in here?" 

The lady didn't even look up at him, just kept on scratching Dief's ears. "The Queen's Bedroom is always kept ready for her majesty to make an appearance," she said, as if this actually counted as some kind of answer and not the kind of thing Turnbull said just to get on Ray's nerves. 

"Yeah, I've heard the spiel," Ray said. "That's not helping me out here. Step away from the wolf and talk to me- and keep your hands where I can see 'em!" The odds that this woman was hiding some kind of freeze ray under the cloak would've usually seemed slim to nil, but the fact that the entire goddamn consulte was frozen wasn't something he was expecting, either, so he wasn't in the mood to take any chances. 

The woman looked at him like she was trying not to laugh, and glanced back down at Dief. "You trust him?" she asked. 

Dief barked back at her. 

"All right." She took a step back from Dief and held her hands up, still looking at Ray like he was ridiculous and she didn't have time for this. "My friend here's vouched for you," she said. 

Ray stared at her, then at Dief. "Thanks," he said. Then he shook his head at himself for talking to the dog and looked back at the woman. "Seriously- how did you get in here? And what the hell happened to everybody else? And why didn't it happen to you? And why _isn't_ it happening to me?" 

"It's a simple time disruptor," she said, shaking one of her hands so he could see the wrist cuff she wore on it. The thing was some mix of leather and metal with a lot of little lights going up and down the sides. "I slowed down the building so I could get in without too many questions. Suppose it doesn't work on you because you're not one of my subjects." She gave a wry chuckle. "Diplomacy's a funny old thing." 

Ray shook his head and put up his own hands- they were lost somewhere between the _I could strangle you_ gesture and the _Whoa, wait, time out_ gesture, since he hadn't figured out which one he wanted to make at her. " _What?_ " 

"Time disruptor," she repeated, slower, like she thought he didn't speak English. 

"You're saying you paused the consulate with that doodad on your wrist?" One of them was crazy, and at this point, Ray wasn't sure which. 

"Oh, is this a consulate?" she asked. "All I could tell was it was mine. Very lovely. A bit too green." 

Ray ground his teeth, and tried asking again. "You _froze_ the _consulate?_ " 

"Yeah," she said, unapologetic. "Because I needed to get into my room." 

" _Your_ room?" Ray repeated. "What do you mean, _your room?_ " 

"I told you," she said, "The Queen's Bedroom is always kept in state for when her majesty comes to call." She gave him a slightly sarcastic smile, as if she was explaining something obvious. "I came to call." 

Ray rubbed at his forehead. He had not had enough coffee for this conversation. Actually, thinking about it, he probably hadn't had enough _acid_ for this conversation. "Are you saying you're the queen?" 

"Yes," she said, looking amused. 

"The queen of England?" he asked, though he wasn't at all sure he'd feel much better if she confirmed that. 

"Yes." 

Nope. It didn't feel better. "Lady," he said, "I dunno what your game is, but Fraser's shown me a loonie. Aside from a certain mental resemblance to the bird on the back, you're not the one on it." 

"Not yet," she said. 

Ray could feel every muscle in his face twitching in different directions, trying to figure out which expression it wanted to make. 

Whatever expression it was making wasn't the one she wanted. She rolled her eyes at him and said, as if this should have sunk in with him sooner, "It's a _time disruptor._ Figure it out." 

"You're crazy," Ray said. 

"So it's been said," she said, giving him another one of those smiles like she was trying not to laugh. "But I'm also the bloody queen." 

"Right," he said. "You're the queen of England and you can just hit the pause button on reality whenever you want, because you got magic jewelry. Okay. You also got a bridge for sale?" 

"Answer me this," she said. "Have you got another explanation for what's going on downstairs?" 

Ray could feel the twitching in his face again. It seemed to go on for a very long time. 

"No," he admitted. 

"Right," she said. "So let's just assume for the moment that I'm telling the truth." 

"I'd really rather not assume that," Ray said. 

"It's your choice," she said shortly. "But right now, I've got a very big problem and you're in my way." 

Ray didn't want to believe her. Really didn't- he could think of about a hundred other fantastically impossible situations that he'd rather be true than this one. Like, for example, that she was an ambassador from the planet of beautiful women and they had just elected him their king. But he really didn't have another explanation for what was happening or how, and hers was all he had to go on- at least until Fraser unfroze and started licking the answer out of a light socket. 

Ray pressed his lips together and narrowed his eyes at her. "They hurt?" he asked. 

"Slowed down almost to a stop," she said. "Dreadfully boring, but painless. It'll wear off." 

Ray lowered the gun. "Fine," he said. "I am choosing to count you as a credible witness for the next fifteen minutes." 

"Thanks," she said dryly, dropping her hands to her sides. 

"You got a name?" Ray asked. 

"Liz Ten," she said, fiddling with her wrist doodad so the lights on it started changing colors. 

Ray gave her an incredulous look. "What is that, a robot name?" 

"It's shorter than Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth Gloriana Regina the Tenth," she said. "Almost went with HRH, but it sounds like a virus." 

He decided to let it go. "What are you doing with that thing?" he asked. "Are you fixing everybody downstairs?" 

"Trying," Liz said. She gave Dief a long-suffering look. "You really trust him?" 

Dief let out a groan. 

She sighed and shook her head. "Fine," she said. 

Whole new expressions for _you've got to be kidding me_ were still colonizing Ray's face. He thought he might be getting a headache from where they were sticking the flags in. "Why do you keep talking to him?" 

"Because he doesn't ask stupid questions," Liz said. 

Ray rolled his eyes. "Nice," he said. "Real nice. Hey, why didn't the freeze thingy work on him? He's a Canadian dog." 

"Wolf," she corrected. 

"Same difference." 

She made an offended tsk noise, but seemed to choose not to comment. "Didn't work on him for the same reason it doesn't work on you or me. He's not a British subject. Wolves don't technically belong to any sovereign nation." 

"And you can talk to him?" Ray asked. He'd watched Fraser talk to Dief, but he'd always been pretty sure that Fraser just pretended Dief said whatever he wanted to hear. 

"Old family thing," she said. She didn't elaborate. "There we are. Your friends should be up and about again once our time here is up." 

"Our time?" Ray asked. 

"As I recall, I'm only credible to you for eleven more minutes," Liz said. 

"Oh," Ray said. "Right. Yeah." He scratched at the back of his head for a moment, not sure what else there was to say. "I'm Kowalski, by the way. Ray Kowalski." 

"Yes, he's told me," she said, patting Dief's head again. 

Ray made a face. "Would you stop doing that?" 

"If you insist," she said. "It's been a pleasure meeting you, Detective Kowalski, but as I was saying--" She cut herself off, looking worried. 

"What?" Ray asked. 

"Do you hear that?" Liz said. 

"Hear what?" 

But then he did hear it. Somewhere outside, he could hear what sounded like a brass band playing a slow, almost funereal version of _Santa Claus Is Coming To Town._ Ray hadn't imagined before this that anyone could play that song so it sounded like somebody had died, but today wasn't exactly shaping up to be his most normal day ever, why should it start now? 

Still, he didn't see anything all that weird about someone playing a carol during the holidays, so he shrugged. "Christmas music." 

Liz gave him a look like he had said "incoming nuke" and immediately ran for the door. 

"Whoa, wait a minute!" Ray called after her. Dief took off in hot pursuit and Ray chased after both of them. "Christ, what _now_ \--" 

Liz was standing outside, just in front of Fraser, staring down the street. Ray pulled up next to her and followed her gaze. 

Moving slowly up the street like the most flamboyant pallbearers in the history of the world was a small army of Santa Clauses. 

Ray checked that sentence again in his head, the sight traveling from his eyes to his brain and back, like it wanted to make sure that was really what he was seeing, but Ray didn't have any other word for it. There were at least fifty of them, all dressed in bright red and white, the old robey kind of costume you sometimes saw in the higher class of mall Santa. Except these weren't mall Santas. They looked- weird, somehow. Inhuman. Their faces were glossy and shining, like they'd been painted on. Almost like they were made of glass, or really high-polished plastic. Not like mall Santas, so much as life-sized Santa ornaments. Life-sized Santa ornaments that could walk and play musical instruments. 

"What the hell," Ray muttered. 

But Liz and Dief were already taking off again, running back inside the consulate like their lives depended on it. Ray didn't really know why they were doing that, but his legs and feet seemed to agree that it was a good idea, and he found himself chasing them back up again to The Queen's Bedroom. 

Liz was ransacking the room in a way that'd make Turnbull cry, looking around desperately for something she seemed to know was here, but didn't know exactly where. 

"What the _hell_ ," Ray said again, adding all the emphasis he could in the hopes that some sort of explanation was forthcoming. 

One wasn't. Liz looked at him desperately. "Do you know how to shoot?" 

"What?" he asked. 

"A gun, a harpoon, a crossbow- anything that has a trigger and fires projectiles into targets with careful aim!" she snapped impatiently, snapping her fingers. "Do you know how to shoot?" 

"Well, yeah," he said, "but--" 

Liz looked the tiniest bit relieved and threw herself into the closet yanking shelves and their contents off the walls to throw onto the floor. "The Queen's Bedroom is always kept prepared for the queen," she said, like she hadn't disturbed him with that line enough today, "in the event of any visit- or state emergency." Somewhere around the fourth shelf that she tore down, she found what she was looking for: a tiny little metal panel with a dial pad and a black square on it. She punched in a few digits, then made a small cut in her thumb with one of her fingernails and pressed it to the square. 

A computerized voice from nowhere said, "Welcome, Queen Elizabeth the Tenth." 

Ray felt his jaw going slack. "What. The. _Hell._ " 

Liz ignored him while the wall in the closet slid away, like a hidden panel, and suddenly Ray found himself staring into a tiny room filled with some of the biggest, weirdest, and scariest-looking guns he'd ever seen. She took two from the shelf and tossed one at him. Ray only barely managed to catch it. 

"Are we gonna shoot robot Santa Clauses?" Ray asked her. "Is that what we're about to do here?" 

"Do you have a problem with that?" Liz asked. 

Ray looked at her face- steely, determined, pretty much everything you wanted from a queen in an emergency- and decided it'd be in his best interests to shut up. "No," he said. 

"Great," she replied. "Come on. Your friends aren't back to normal yet- they'll be in even more danger than us. Let's go." 

Ray followed her down the steps of the consulate and parked himself in front of Fraser. "Just so you know," he said to Liz, "so far, I really don't like you." 

"Noted," she said. "Now take aim. Fire on my mark." 

Ray looked at the robot Santa Clauses, pressed his lips together again, and glanced over his shoulder at Fraser. "I hope you unfreeze soon," he said. "You're about to meet someone you got a lot in common with." 

Then he pointed the gun and got ready to fire.


End file.
